1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, such as a printer, a copying machine, and a facsimile device. More specifically, the present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that uses a cleaning member to recover transfer residual toners adhered to the surface of an image carrier and the surface of a charging member charging the image carrier, after a toner image is transferred onto a transfer body.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has conventionally been known an image forming apparatus using a system for charging a photoreceptor by bringing a charging roller applied with a voltage into contact with the surface of the photoreceptor. In such an image forming apparatus, because the charging roller is in contact with the photoreceptor, the toner that remains on the photoreceptor surface after it is cleaned by a cleaning brush or the like adheres to the surface of the charging roller. If the toner adheres to the surface of the charging roller as described above, the part carrying the toner cannot charge the photoreceptor properly, causing uneven charging of the photoreceptor surface. For this reason, the toner adhered to the surface of the charging roller needs to be removed.
In the image forming apparatus disclosed in, for example, Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. H6-102800, the cleaning brush for removing the toner remaining on the photoreceptor surface is brought into contact with not only the photoreceptor surface but also the surface of the charging roller in order to remove the toner adhered to the surface of the charging roller as well.
In recent years, the downsizing of image forming apparatuses has progressed, and, as with the image forming apparatus described in the above patent publication, the configuration of using a single cleaning brush to remove the toners adhered to the photoreceptor surface and the charging roller surface is established so that it is not necessary to provide both a cleaning brush for the photoreceptor and a cleaning brush for the charging roller, whereby the downsizing of the apparatus main body can be realized.
Note that when the toners that are adhered to the photoreceptor surface and the charging roller surface are removed using the cleaning brush, the toners gradually accumulate on the cleaning brush, reducing cleaning performance of the cleaning brush. In the image forming apparatus described in the above patent publication, therefore, in order to secure cleaning performance of the cleaning brush, a flicker bar is brought into contact with the cleaning brush to scrape off the toner adhered to the cleaning brush.
However, in the configuration of the image forming apparatus described in the above patent publication, it is necessary to provide a waste toner tank that is specially designed for recovering the toner scraped off from the cleaning brush, but the problem is that providing such a waste toner tank will increase the size of the apparatus main body.